The PBE has been updated! As we kick off the new 7.8 PBE cycle, today's update includes two new champions; Rakan, the Charmer and Xayah, the Rebel, the new Conqueror Karma and Cosmic Blade Master Yi skins, MSI in-game content, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and subject to change - what you see below may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers at the end of the cycle! Manage your expectations accordingly.)

New Champions - Xayah and Rakan

The 7.8 PBE cycle includes not one butTWO new champions now up for testing - Rakan, the Charmer and Xayah, the Rebel! For gameplay designers, BeatPunchBeef worked on Rakan and EndlessPillows worked on Xayah - src.

While this couple tests on the PBE, you can report to these threads with comments, questions, and concerns of the heart:

Voiceover

Here's the full Rakan voiceover, including numerous special interaction and unique VO lines when around Xayah.

(Look for a special interactions video soon!)

Lore

None yet! Typically we see short bios for in client and full bio's added later to the champion's universe page. Until we get full lore entries on our two new champions, a story on Vastaya can be found here.

Cosmic Dawn Rakan

Cosmic Dawn Rakan and his darling Cosmic Dusk Xayah bring their star-crossed dance to the Rift!

Cosmic Dawn Rakan is set to be 1350 RP* and includes:

New model and texture - Bright! Radiant! Distracting!

New particles -With all the colors of a perfect sunrise!

New sound effects - Magical, celestial sounds!

New recall animation - Rakan plays around with the sun before inevitably becoming one with it!

Cosmic Dawn Rakan is now available to play on the PBE! As players who experience this content firsthand, your constructive feedback is appreciated. Feel free to leave it in the comments below! If you have any questions, you can also drop them below and I'll do my best to answer them! ^-^

* Prices subject to change."

New Champion Skins

Two new champion skins have debuted this cycle, including Conqueror Karma for MSI 2017 and the new 1350 RP tier Cosmic Blade Master Yi!

Conqueror Karma

Here's Riot Katana with a feedback thread for Conqueror Karma including context on the skinline changes and MSI relation:

"Hey there!

I’m Riot Katana, a product manager with a focus on esports in-game content. With Conqueror Karma hitting PBE as the first member of a new skin line, I wanted to give a bit of backstory as to how she came about and what changes you can expect to esports skins this year.

Last year we mentioned that the Challenger skin would contribute to the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational prize pool [LINK] just like Championship Zed for the World Championship. We were super excited about this new opportunity and when we began exploring the Challenger skin for this year, we discovered some weaknesses that we wanted to level up:

The theme was a bit unclear - Many players didn’t realize these skins were connected to esports because they didn’t line up with a major event visually or in timing

A start of season launch didn’t make as much sense as MSI 2017 - When we created the Challenger skin line we had never even held an MSI, so the start of the esports global season seemed like a natural fit. As MSI’s identity developed over the last few years, it made more and more sense for the spirit of our second largest event to shape the skin. We don’t want to significantly overhaul two skins that a lot of players enjoy as-is, so we decided to make the change going forward, but not alter Ahri and Nidalee.

All of this is to say that we thought we could do better, and that bringing the skin more in line with our Mid-Season Invitational would create a more meaningful and commemorative esports skin.

We took this opportunity to rethink Challenger down to its core thematic. We revisited the color scheme and armor design and lined it up more with what you’ll see year over year during MSI. You’ll also see a darker undertone in the design and new name - “Conqueror,” a nod to the regional clashes and the struggle for one region to rise to the top during MSI 2017.

Conqueror Karma will now contribute to the MSI 2017 prize pool instead of its Challenger predecessor, but we hope you’ll be even more excited about the new direction. As we continue to iterate on how to make the best skins possible for esports, expect to see some information on our plan for the 2016 SKT Worlds Winner’s Skins soon! (Hint: Bang’s concept art is spot on)

FAQ:

Will there be any more Challenger skins following the previous designs?
Currently there are no plans to create more Challenger skins, but the idea is not completely off the table.

Will previous Challenger Skins (Ahri and Nidalee) still return during esports events?
Yes, we will still consider the past Challenger skins as esports skins even though we aren’t planning to make more at this time. You’ll still see them hit the store during MSI and Worlds.

Why did you choose Karma to be this year’s Conqueror skin?
We consider a lot of factors when we choose esports skins candidates. With our new launch timing, we pick esports-resonant champions by considering play rates from the most recent major international tournament (i.e. Conqueror looked at Worlds play rates, and Championship will look at MSI play rates). We also consider how well the champion will fit the thematic of the skin line (sorry guys, probably no Championship Teemo anytime soon) and their recent or upcoming skins.

We consider a lot of factors when we choose esports skins candidates. With our new launch timing, we pick esports-resonant champions by considering play rates from the most recent major international tournament. Using Worlds play rates to choose Conqueror and MSI play rates to choose Championship gives us the best opportunity to capture a moment of esports history while still giving us enough time to develop a high quality skin.

We also consider overall champion popularity, how well the champion will fit the thematic of the skin line (sorry guys, probably no Championship Teemo anytime soon), and their recent or upcoming skins."

LoL Esports tweeted out that Conqueror Karma will contribute to the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational prize pool.

Cosmic Blade Master Yi

"Cosmic Blade Master Yi channels the power of the stars to fight in the cosmos and on the Rift!

Cosmic Blade Master Yi is set to be 1350 RP* and includes:

New model and texture - Decked out in white and blue attire, complete with golden armor!

New particles - Astral blues and constellations for all abilities!

New sound effects - Cosmic VO processing, along with meteoric metal sound effects for all abilities!

New recall animation - Master Yi readies himself before blinking through space!

Cosmic Blade Master Yi is now available to play on the PBE! As players who experience this content firsthand, your constructive feedback is appreciated. Feel free to leave it in the comments below! If you have any questions, you can also drop them below and I'll do my best to answer them! ^-^

* Prices subject to change."

New Ward Skin

Along with the new Karma skin, a new Conqueror Ward skin is also now on the PBE.

New MSI Content - Summoner Icons, Emotes, & more

A large batch of MSI summoner icons are now on the PBE. With a total of 27 icons, there is a base MSI icon and a set of light and dark icons for each region. No details on availability yet.

There is also another set of MSI related in-game emotes - 13 total and one for each region. The assumption is these are related to the icons (like Worlds). No firm details yet.

We also have in-game regional base banners, which are typically seen on stream:

MSI 2017 Summoner's Rift decals added - as with many esports events, expect these MSI logos to appear a various places on the map during the event.

New Hextech Crafting Assets

A new asset for a new type of hextech crafting chest is also on the PBE. This chest would appear to be Esports/MSI related given the crest in the middle.

Balance Changes

* Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical or experimental changes. Be aware that what you see below may be lacking context or other changes that didn't make it in or were implemented in an earlier patch this cycle! These are not official notes.

Exciting day today, we finally get to put our latest champions onto the PBE and have you folks see them in action. More on them from the champion team to come very shortly, thoughts from me on some other stuff below.

Twisted Treeline

Nothing guaranteed yet, but we'll be trying to get a bit of work on TT in during the 7.8 cycle if possible. We prioritize SR balance over TT work, given mid-season's coming up quickly though there's less value in hitting balance on some champs that are going to be meaningfully affected the patch after anyway. Possible we might have some time to hit some stuff on TT as a result.

Ivern

Speaking of treelines we'll be taking a pass at Ivern in 7.8. Love the dude, but he's a bit too good at some things which makes it tough for enemies to interact with him/his team. Things we're testing include:

Slightly longer passive application channel duration

Created brushes not hidding epic monsters within them (too much objective control power, though you can still create a wall of brush blocking them off of course and hide vision of them that way)

Shorter cast range on created brush (it's 1600 at present, which is a bit nuts)

Higher E CD (whoops, typo'd this the first time)

Mid-Season Approaching

Couple of weeks now until mid-season stuff hits PBE. I'm not certain on exact timelines but we'll be talking at least slightly before that about the changes, what our goals are etc. Some of the crit changes we were hoping to ship didn't work out alas, so we'll have some changes to other AD items but not those. Will certainly take the time to talk through what we were going for, why we concluded we shouldn't ship the changes and whether we might go back to them at some point though.

Stretch goal for 7.8: Heimer

No details yet on possible changes and there probably won't be anything on PBE for a little bit at least, we're hoping we'll be able to put a bit of time into Heimer though.

Shen

We've got some changes for Shen in testing that we think we'll be shipping some for of in the next patch. Goal there's to reduce the discrepancy in effectiveness between organized play on really low latency environments and regular play, reduce situations where Shen's strong in one context while ok or even weak in the other. As a result we'll be looking at things like:

Increased E width. The difference in reliability between very low and normal latency circumstances looks to be too high and we think that width's part of the reason. Current width also creates some situations where it looks like it hit but didn't, so this potentially of double value as a change.

Removing bonus damage to non champions on the Q. Organized play gets a lot more value from wave pushing power throughout the game. Hitting this looks like a good place to remove power from that context as a result, potentially allowing it to be reinvested elsewhere.

Whoops, forgot something. We've also got ARAM changes coming in 7.8

ARAM's intended to be a notably faster game mode than SR, some (not all) games can really stall out though. We've got some ARAM changes on the way as a result aimed to improving those stalled out games, with changes to stuff like super minion stats, slightly more cannon minions, slightly faster spawning waves etc. Those should be hitting PBE today too, feedback on them much appreciated!"

2) Riot Katanatweeted the Conqueror Karma skin will be legacy and available during Worlds & MSI. 7.8 will be the MSI patch.

3) ManWolfAxeBoss tweeted context on today's ARAM changes as well as a preview of tomorrow's TT changes:

"Shen's Q no longer does bonus damage to minions, but now has a base magic damage component on top of the % damage. This base magic damage is intended to be reliable for last hitting in early lane but not be as good for shoving the wave out pre-Tiamat/Bami's Cinder purchase.

We will be making adjustments to how the base damage component scales over the game, but Shen's net damage versus champions will be increased as a fall out of this change.

Will also be adding bonus damage to monsters back into the Q so that Shen's jungle clear isn't disproportionately nerfed by this change."